PM wrong to take part
By Ria Taitt Political Editor
trinidadexpress.com
President of the Law Association, Senior Counsel Martin Daly, yesterday criticised Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s participation in a ‘march’ last Friday at Woodford Square, Port of Spain.
Daly raised the question of whether the Prime Minister had committed a criminal offence.
Continue reading Daly Questions ‘Illegal’ Rally
By Michael De Gale
August 20, 2008
Immigration in the new global economy is a fact of life as wars, restlessness, employment and investment opportunities make it necessary for people to move. Attracted mainly by its new found wealth, T&T has become a particularly attractive destination for immigrants from across the globe. Evidence suggests that most of these immigrants are doing exceptionally well, establishing businesses and accessing supports from government and financial institutions that traditionally deny similar services to locals. As an immigrant myself, it is nice to feel welcome in your adopted home and be able to take advantage of the opportunities provided. What troubles me however, is that native born Trinbagonians on the lowest rung of the socio/economic ladder, continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel for opportunities while living in festering ghettos, not far removed from the days of slavery and indentureship.
Continue reading Rumors of War
By Verna St. Rose Greaves
August 11, 2008
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
Too many of us as adults believe that the only way we can deal with indiscipline in our children, is to literally beat it out of them. Religious references support our nostalgic recollections of being beaten to demonstrate it’s effectiveness, because after all look how good we turned out.
Stories are told of kneeling on graters holding up two big stones in the hot sun. Or of being ordered to cut the tamarind whip with which you were to be flogged. In the extreme the offending tool of choice a stout leather strap or the urine soaked and stretched penis of a bull; its’ impact so far removed from its’ original intent.
Continue reading I don’t like to be hit. What about you?
By Clarence Toussaint
August 11, 2008
This letter in response to Minister Martin Joseph’s call for harsher gun laws in Trinidad and Tobago.
What do stronger gun ownership laws have to do with criminals trafficking in and using illegally owned firearms? These laws will only affect the law-abiding citizens who’ve applied for firearms permits through the Commissioner of Police (CoP), sometimes having to wait years or decades for the permits process to worm its way through only to be denied (or have already been robbed, murdered, raped or kidnapped!!!)
Continue reading No New Firearms Laws Needed
By Michael De Gale
August 01, 2008
I yearn for the day when I can look at the front page of any T&T newspaper and see headlines that are not crime related. Unfortunately, I cannot hold my breath until hell freezes over or for the incumbent government to realize that there is a direct correlation between poverty and crime.
Continue reading Violence – The Fruit That We Have Sown
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, July 27th 2008
THE dovetailing of two incidents last week laid bare reasons why, in spite of its immense potential, this country seems to be destined for self-destruction. First, there was the execution of a reputed gang leader, Mervyn “Kojo” Allamby, in Aranjuez. Note I did not use the generic name Cudjoe, an Anglicised version of the African name that even those who bear it are unaware of. It’s a bastardisation similar to Cuffie or Cuffy, the African root being “Kofi”, and among Indians, “Maha-beer”, a European version of “Maha-bir”.
Continue reading When greed leads to grief
Police were on a manhunt in Central Trinidad last night, after another toddler was murdered.
Three-year-old Roshni Ramdial, was pronounced dead on arrival at Chaguanas Health Centre. The child was beaten.
Roshni’s death followed the deaths of several other children who were attacked and killed during the past few months.
It was only last Wednesday, in Mayaro, that nine-month-old Rakeem Ricardo Clarke was clobbered to death with a dabla—thick wooden paddle used to flip roti.
A man and a woman were, up to late yesterday, assisting police in that investigation, pending an autopsy today.
Continue reading Another Central toddler murdered
By Sean Douglas and Andre Bagoo
Wednesday, June 25 2008
THE Law Association yesterday questioned the legality of the “lock down” of Richplain by the Defence Force who set up camp in the Diego Martin community after the Father’s Day murder of Corporal Ancil Wallace and his best friend Noel Charles.
Soldiers pitched a camp at a savannah at Angies Field Road in Richplain, two days after Cpl Wallace and Charles were killed during the christening party for Wallace’s son Jaydon on June 15. There have since been reports by residents of beatings by the soldiers and the detention of several persons in the absence of the police.
Continue reading Richplain lockdown illegal
Ria Taitt Political Editor
Sunday, June 22nd 2008
Teachers feel “disempowered” and “abandoned” on the issue of corporal punishment and classroom control as students mock them saying “Government say yuh cyar do me nothing”.
Eighty three per cent of teachers agree that corporal punishment should be allowed in secondary schools. And, according to 62 per cent of teachers, sexual deviance-pornography, sexual intercourse, sexual fondling and kissing- on the school premises are “big problems”.
Continue reading Teachers on corporal punishment
By Raffique Shah
June 22, 2008
The telephone call came earlier than reveille-for-an-old-soldier, but it was not unexpected. At the other end of the line, “College”, having apologised for blowing the telecom bugle a trifle too soon, said to me: “Raf, you must write something about these little punks who feel they can shoot soldiers just so! That would never have happened in our day. We took care of our own, even if it meant bending the law!” To cut a short conversation even shorter, “College”, as the one-time private soldier was fondly known, felt that Corporal Ancil Wallace’s colleagues should have acted with dispatch to deal with the toy-criminals who brazenly shot to death the soldier and his close friend.
Continue reading Army can clean up the country